A South African church leader is confident that God answers prayer, and he has a statistic to prove it: 840,000.
That’s the number of people Peter Sekhonyane says have come to Christ in the six years since churches in his area began leading 24/7 “prayer watches.”
“Our aim is that before the end of the year we will be crossing the 1 million mark of people giving themselves over [to] the Lordship of Jesus Christ,” Sekhonyane said in an interview with Britain-based 24-7 Prayer International during last month’s Global Day of Prayer, which was hosted from South Africa.
Sekhonyane, an evangelist and church planter based in Orange Farm, located roughly 30 miles south of Johannesburg, said 7,800 prayer watches have been started in local churches since 2004, with the congregations covering each hour of the day in prayer. As a result, he said, 246 marriages have been restored, and 190 witch doctors have come to faith in Jesus.
Two years ago the ministry started teaching children about intercession, and now he says there are 62 youth prayer centers in five South African provinces. In Orange Farm alone, he reports that there are 18 centers with 5,400 children praying.
“Through the prayers of those children, we have seen elderly people, widows, orphans, the needy and the poor receiving food parcels,” Sekhonyane said. “When children pray, God answers in a very special way.”
